It was a French victory at the VLN1 race at Nürburgring today.
The Porsche trio of Romain Dumas, Fred Makowiecki, and Patrick Pilet for Manthey Racing #911 took both Pole Position and the victory at the first 4-hour race of the year on the famous Nordschleife.
However, it wasn’t a walk in the park for the trio. The had a big battle with the brand colleagues from Falken Motorsport #4 with Marting Ragginger, Jörg Bergmeister, and Laurens Vanthoor behind the wheel. They were in the lead until nine minutes before the finish, where Vanthoor misjudged an overtake on a slower competitor and slammed into the armco, after a wild ride over the grass.
That meant that Dumas, Makowiecki, and Pilet could take the victory after an intense battle with Bentley Team Abt #38 and Audi Sport Team Land #28 through a big part of the race.
Photo: VLN Presse
The race was held under blue skies, which is a bit uncommon for that area of Germany at this time of the year. But that only meant that the drivers had the most ideal conditions to race.
Mercedes didn’t have the best day at the office, finishing only 7th after a whole host of Audis. However, it was even worse for Nissan and BMW who was nearly five minutes away from the victory. But there often is quite some sandbagging going on before the N24, so perhaps that’s what we saw today from the non Porsche, Audi, and Bentley teams.
The next round of the VLN series will be held on April 8th, which is the last chance to test the material under race conditions before the big 24-hour race at the track at the end of May.
